500 People Rally Outside Detention Center;

Hunger Strike Continues with Ongoing Use of Solitary Confinements 
Prisoner News, 9 April , 2014 
 

Tacoma, WA-Five hundred people gathered on April 5th outside of the 
Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in order to call attention and offer 
support to the ongoing hunger strike inside. Organizers hosted workshops and 
discussions about the history of the detention center and the conditions 
detainees currently face, while people rallied, hearing from family members 
affected by deportation. At one point, hunger strikers called organizers of 
the event, and they were able to listen to the large crowd cheering them on 
from outside. Since Saturday, April 5, there have been at least 60 people on 
hunger strike in the detention center. 

One hunger striker, Maria Cecilia Huaya Mara, offered this message to 
supporters: "I've been in the US for forty years. I've been in detention for 
two months. I went on a hunger strike for the first time to stop the 
deportations because I see all these women here, that have been here so 
long, being torn from their children. There's tears every day, there's so 
much suffering that it's basically unbearable. The conditions in here are 
not fit for dogs, the food is mostly beans all day long, and it's horrible, 
so I'm protesting that, and I thank everybody out there for their support." 
(audio available upon request) The rally was part of a nation-wide series of 
actions in over 80 different cities on April 5 to call attention to the high 
numbers of deportations under the Obama administration. It is predicted that 
the administration will reach 2 million deportations during the month of 
April. Outside the NWDC, supporters placed 200 flowers, each flower 
representing 10,000 people deported. 

Despite the release of 20 detainees from solitary confinement on April 4th, 
several hunger strikers remain in isolation. A campaign begins today calling 
for the release of Ramon Mendoza-Pascual, Jesus Cipriano Rios, Hassall 
Moses, and others from solitary confinement, with support from the National 
Day Laborers Organizing Network. Mr. Mendoza-Pascual has been on hunger 
strike for at least 24 days and was sentenced to 20 days in solitary for 
striking. Two hunger strikers are once again in medical isolation, and are 
facing threats of forced feeding. Army Veteran Hassall Moses, who has been 
in solitary confinement for at least 13 days, after being charged with 
inciting a work stoppage, said this about being in isolation: "I was put in 
here because I asked people to take part in a no working strike. Because if 
you want to make a difference, we are the backbone of this facility; not 
only in here, but out there, we are what makes America." The full audio of 
Mr. Moses addressing his supporters is available upon request. 

A press conference will be held on April 10 at 12:30 pm outside the Gates 
Foundation. Community organizations and Gates grantees are demanding 
divestment by the Gates Foundation from private prison companies, including 
the GEO Group, which operates the Northwest Detention Center. That same day, 
an indigenous solidarity group will gather at the immigration offices at 
12500 Tukwila International Boulevard at 3:30 pm, calling for a rally, 
prayer and round dance to support indigenous immigrants detained in Tacoma 
and for an end to the criminalization of immigration.The hunger strikers 
continue to challenge the deplorable conditions at the facility, including 
the quality of food and pay of only $1 per day of work. 

Petition on behalf of Hunger Strikers and latest releases available at: 
 
Fund to support the families of human rights hunger strikers: 

 What’s behind the hunger strike at Northwest Detention Center

The hunger strike at Northwest Detention Center reveals a human-rights crisis, according to guest columnists Dan Berger and Angélica Cházaro.

By Dan Berger and Angélica Cházaro, 10 March 2014 Seattle Times

Special to The Times

MORE than 700 people detained at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma began a hunger strike on March 7 in protest of their conditions. Those still reported to be on hunger strike are on medical watch and have been threatened with force-feeding if they continue to refuse food. According to their attorneys, participants have experienced other reprisals for the strike, including solitary confinement and threats to their asylum efforts.

In a public statement, the hunger strikers demanded an end to deportations and the separation of families. They also demanded better food, medical care and wages for work inside the facility (they currently receive just $1 a day for their labor), and an end to exorbitant commissary prices. Detainees pay $8.95 for a bottle of shampoo and $1 for a single plastic plate.

These problems are not limited to federal detention centers. Along with people being held in local jails and state and federal prisons, the detainees have launched what may be the most urgent human-rights movement in our country today. Just this week, a New York inmate died on Rikers Island when his jail cell overheated.

The U.S. prison system is the largest in the world. With 5 percent of the world’s population, we have 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Sentences are longer and conditions harsher than at many prisons throughout the world.

The use of long-term solitary confinement — where some 80,000 Americans now spend 23 or 24 hours a day without human contact and are often denied adequate nutrition, reading material or visits with loved ones — has sparked a growing series of lawsuits, legislative hearings and demonstrations.

In California, prisoners have staged a series of hunger strikes since 2011. At its height in the summer of 2013, 30,000 people in prisons around the state refused food.

Similar to the Tacoma detainees’ demands, the California prisoners call for an end to group punishment and for prison officials to follow United Nations protocols on the use of solitary confinement as well as adequate food. Similar smaller hunger strikes have occurred in prisons in Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois and Virginia since 2011.

Deportations have expanded dramatically in recent years. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of deportations has increased from approximately 165,000 people a year in 2002 to almost 400,000 people annually for the last five years.

Soon, the Obama administration will have deported 2 million people, who are processed through a network of detention centers. By congressional order, these detention centers must hold 34,000 people on any given day. Many of those facilities are privately run. The Northwest Detention Center, one of the biggest in the country, is managed by The Geo Group, a company that describes itself as the “world’s leading provider” of private prisons and detention centers.

Such investment in detention and deportation has sparked a series of efforts among undocumented workers and youth around the country. The hunger strike in Tacoma follows a two-week hunger strike that activists, many of them undocumented, staged outside a Phoenix detention center starting Feb. 24. This week, citing Tacoma as inspiration, migrants in the Conroe, Texas, detention center launched a hunger strike.

Nonviolent civil-disobedience actions have prevented deportations in 16 cities around the country, including at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma days before the hunger strike began.

Such activism has prompted a series of legislative hearings, judicial rulings and conversations about long-term isolation, mass incarceration and the force-feeding of detainees. Still, there is much work to be done. While the United States may like to be a world leader in human rights, its routine practices of confinement violate both international standards and human decency.

We do not often look to prisons and detention centers to understand the social and political needs of our generation. But we should. Some of the most passionate advocates for fairness, justice and human rights are incarcerated.